Reign of Fire [2002]

Poor Rob Bowman, this movie along with Elektra, released three years later, pushed him to the fringes of Hollywood. He worked on so many cult classics dealing with innovative and strange stories like Alien Nation, Probe, Star Trek, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (a true blast from the past), but his greatest achievement is his work on The X Files. This is a mainstream action-fantasy movie with a silly plot and great special effects. However, all that would be in vain if you’ve got a crappy director who cannot successfully mix these elements along with a tone of others into something fun. Reign of Fire is definitely a guilty pleasure, a movie that you watch with your brain turned off, looking for the next cool shot. And there are some glorious shots here. Since this is also a post-apocalyptic movie, we can enjoy it purely because of it. Featuring destroyed English cities and villages with giant fire-breathing dragons controlling the skies, the scenes are truly breath-taking. The story is as simplistic as it gets, but that’s beside the point, if you want to watch some serious post-apocalyptic movies check out: The Road, Children of Men and A Boy and his Dog.

It is the year of our lord Satan 2020 and the rulers of planet Earth have changed. During drilling for the London Underground, workers accidentally stumble upon a huge cave hiding a live dragon. They are soon burned to death as more and more dragons emerge from the cave. Soon, the real cause of the Dinosaur extinction is known and humans fear that they are the next species on the menu. They use all the weapons at their disposal, only hastening the decline of civilization. Now, a small pockets of resistance are still fighting against the dragons, with hope that they could once kill them all and reclaim Earth.

As you probably noticed, the whole dino-dragon premise is not half-bad, but that’s as far as this movie is willing to go. The rest is pretty much standard commercial writing with cardboard cutouts for characters, a lot of cliches and predictable twists. You forget all this when you see a huge dragon barreling down on you. Great special effects along with some pretty bad-ass pieces of equipment for dragon killing really pumped up the atmosphere. Quinn (Bale) is sporting a Ulrik’s Mauser with Tyrannosaurus Rex .577 Nitro bullets. Oddly enough, both of them are real and used in big game hunting to stop the charge of wild animal. Hopefully enough of those animals trampled to death assholes who are hunting big game, they fucking deserve it. I would approve big game hunting, but with a knife. Then you can show all your skill and masculinity, you fucking pussy. Anywhoo, casting was almost prophetic with three, now huge, action stars in one movie: Christian, Matthew and Gerard. In the end, if you’re looking for some post-apocalyptic entertainment, but with dragons, check out Reign of Fire.